InterStrength Essential Motivators™

(aka Temperament)

What are your core psychological needs, values and talents? Where can you shift?

What needs are so essential to your existence that you will go to great lengths to get them met?

What is your purpose?

Your core psychological needs and values have been with you from the beginning as well as the talents that help you scratch the itch that the needs create. This is the heart of who we are, so you will learn more about the essence of the roots of your personality as well as of those around you. This will open up a deep understanding of different perspectives, different talent agendas, and sources of conflict and stress. The Essential Motivators lens is grounded in the patterns David Keirsey called temperament and that were further differentiated and refined by Linda Berens.

What's your Essential Motivator SuperPower™?

Improvising SuperPower™

Gifted at employing the available means to accomplish an end. Creativity is revealed by the variety of solutions they come up with. Talented at using tools, whether the tool be language, theories, a paint brush, or a computer. Tune into immediate sensory information and vary their actions according to the needs of the moment. Gifted at tactics. Can easily read the situation at hand, instantly make decisions, and, if needed, take actions to achieve the desired outcome.

Want the freedom to choose the next act.
Seek to have impact, to get results.
Want to be graceful, bold, and impressive.
Generally are excited and optimistic.
Are absorbed in the action of the moment.
Are oriented toward the present.
Seek adventure and stimulation.
Hunger for spontaneity.
Trust impulses, luck, and their ability to solve any problem they run into.
Think in terms of variation.
Have a talent for noticing and describing rich detail, constantly seeking relevant information.
Like freedom to move, festivities, and games.
Tend to be natural negotiators.
Seize opportunities.
Usually are gifted tacticians, deciding the best move to make in the moment, the expedient action to take.
Are frequently drawn to all kinds of work that requires variation on a theme.

Needs and Values

The core needs are to have the freedom to act without hindrance and to see a marked result from action. People of this pattern highly value aesthetics, whether in nature or art. Their energies are focused on skillful performance, variety, and stimulation. They tend toward pragmatic, utilitarian actions with a focus on technique. They trust their impulses and have a drive to action. They learn best experientially and when they see the relevance of what they are learning to what they are doing. They enjoy hands-on, applied learning with a fast pace and freedom to explore.

Stabilizing SuperPower™

Talented at logistics and at maintaining useful traditions. Masterfully get the right things in the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity, in the right quality, to the right people, and not to the wrong people. Know how things have always been done, so they anticipate where things can go wrong. Have a knack for attending to rules, procedures, and protocol. Make sure the correct information is assembled and presented to the right people.

Want to fit in, to have membership.
Hunger for responsibility, accountability, and predictability.
Tend to be generous, to serve, and to do their duty.
Establish and maintain institutions and standard operating procedures.
Tend to protect and preserve, to stand guard and warn.
Look to the past and tradition.
Foster enculturation with ceremonies and rules.
Trust contracts and authority.
Want security and stability.
Think in terms of what is conventional, comparisons, associations, and discrete elements.
Generally are serious, concerned, and fatalistic.
Usually are skilled at ensuring that things, information, and people are in the right place, in the right amounts, in the right quality, at the right time.
Frequently gravitate toward business and commerce.

Needs and Values

The core needs are for group membership and responsibility. They need to know they are doing the responsible thing. They value stability, security, and a sense of community. They trust hierarchy and authority and may be surprised when others go against these social structures. People of this temperament prefer cooperative actions with a focus on standards and norms. Their orientation is to their past experiences, and they like things sequenced and structured. They tend to look for the practical applications of what they are learning.

Theorizing SuperPower™

Prefer using their gifts of strategic analysis to approach all situations. Constantly examine the relationship of the means to the overall vision and goal. No strangers to complexity, theories, and models, like to think of all possible contingencies and develop multiple plans for handling them. Abstractly analyze a situation and consider previously unthought-of possibilities. Researching, analyzing, searching for patterns, and developing hypotheses are quite likely to be natural modus operandi.

Want knowledge and to be competent, to achieve mastery.
Seek expertise to understand how the world and things in it work.
Are theory oriented.
See everything as conditional and relative.
Are oriented to the infinite.
Trust logic and reason.
Want to have a rationale for everything.
Are skeptical.
Think in terms of differences, delineating categories, definitions, structures, and functions.
Hunger for precision, especially in thought and language.
Usually are skilled at long-range planning, inventing, designing, and defining. Generally are calm.
Foster individualism.
Frequently gravitate toward technology and the sciences.
Tend to be well suited for engineering and devising strategy, whether in the social sciences or physical sciences.

Needs and Values

The core needs are for mastery of concepts, knowledge, and competence. Want to understand the operating principles of the universe and to learn or even develop theories for everything. Value expertise, logical consistency, concepts, and ideas and seek progress. Tend toward pragmatic, utilitarian actions with a technology focus. Trust logic above all else. Tend to be skeptical and highly value precision in language. Learning style is conceptual, and want to know the underlying principles that generate the details and facts rather than the details alone.

Catalyzing SuperPower™

Tend to be gifted at unifying diverse peoples and helping individuals realize their potential. Build bridges between people through empathy and clarification of deeper issues. Use these same skills to help people work through difficulties. Thus, can make excellent mediators, helping people and companies solve conflicts through mutual cooperation. If working on a global level, they champion a cause. If working on an individual level, they focus on growth and development of the person.

Want to be authentic, benevolent, and empathic.
Search for identity, meaning, and significance.
Are relationship oriented, particularly valuing meaningful relationships.
Tend to be idealistic and visionary, wanting to make the world a better place. Look to the future.
Trust their intuition, imagination, and impressions.
Focus on developing potential, fostering and facilitating growth through coaching, teaching, counseling, and communicating.
Generally are enthusiastic.
Think in terms of integration and similarities and look for universals.
Often are gifted in the use of metaphors to bridge different perspectives. Usually are diplomatic.
Frequently are drawn to work that inspires and develops people and relationships.

Needs and Values

The core needs are for the meaning and significance that come from having a sense of purpose and working toward some greater good. They need to have a sense of unique identity. They value unity, self-actualization, and authenticity. People of this pattern prefer cooperative interactions with a focus on ethics and morality. They tend to trust their intuition and impressions first and then seek to find the logic and the data to support them. Given their need for empathic relationships, they learn more easily when they can relate to the instructor and the group.

Using Instruments with the Essential Motivator Lens